BATON ROUGE - The search for Southern University's next president-chancellor continues.

The system's search committee will meet virtually on both Tuesday and Wednesday to interview five semifinalists.

The semifinalists include:

- Laurence Alexander, chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff

- James Ammons, chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans

- Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University in New Orleans

- Dennis Shields, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Platteville

- Kent Smith, president of Langston University in Oklahoma

Currently, Ray Belton is the president-chancellor of Southern University. He announced his retirement in July of 2021 and plans to do so at the end of the next fall semester.

Belton has served in the role for seven years and before that, he worked in faculty and administration at Southern for over 34 years, serving as the chancellor for Southern University Shreveport for 14 years. 

The search for his replacement began in November of 2021.

The committee began selecting semifinalists on December 8 and just over a month later, Southern is set to conduct the next round of interviews virtually.

The finalists will be interviewed on campus and the search committee will submit the final recommendation to the board, though that timeline is unclear at the moment.

The search committee will begin at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 18. Interview schedules and livestream links can be found here.